Can Prenatal and Postnatal Cell Phone Exposure Increase Adverse Maternal, Infant and Child Outcomes?

Abstract

Objective To determine the association between maternal mobile phone use and adverse outcomes in infants, children, and mothers. Method In March 202, we conducted a search on the MEDLINE, Embase, and Scopus databases. Data extraction and an assessment of the quality of the studies were performed by two authors. The quality of the studies was assessed using the checklist of the Newcastle-Ottawa scale. Results Studies assessing behavioral problems in infants aged 6 to 18 months reported null findings. However, an increased risk of emotional and behavioral disorders was observed in children aged between 7 and 11 years whose mothers had been exposed to cell phones. The findings regarding the association between maternal cell phone exposure and adverse outcomes in children aged 3 to 5 are controversial. A study found a significant association between the call time (p = 0.002) or the history of mobile phone use (in months) and speech disorders in the children (p = 0.003). However, another study found that maternal cell phone use during pregnancy was not significantly associated with child psychomotor and mental developments. Inconclusive results were observed about the adverse outcomes in fetuses, such as fetal growth restriction or t scores for birth weight in cell phone users as opposed to non-users. On the contrary, the children of mothers who were cell phone users had a lower risk of scoring low on motor skills. Similar results were observed regarding the adverse outcomes of cell phone use in infants, such as fetal growth restriction or low birth weight, and the risk of preeclampsia was lower among subjects with medium and high cell phone exposure, as opposed to those with low exposure. Conclusion Studies on behavioral problems have reported different postnatal results, such as null findings among infants and a positive association in children.

Response to a letter to the editor, "Impact of smartphone radiation on pregnancy: A systematic review"

“…(2017) , and Sudan et al. (2016) that were included in Ashrafinia et al. 's (2022) paper; despite using diverse keywords and academic and grey literature databases in their search.…”

Systematic review of the physiological and health-related effects of radiofrequency electromagnetic field exposure from wireless communication devices on children and adolescents in experimental and epidemiological human studies

“…Bektas and Dasdag (2017) [ 30 ] also found that data on the effects of exposure to mobile phones on young animals were inconsistent, but they were able to identify many studies showing adverse effects. A current review by Ashrafinia et al (2021) [ 31 ] found only inconsistent results regarding the effects of pre- and postnatal exposure to mobile phone-related EMF on mothers and their children. However, the review was not conducted systematically and only 6 articles were included in the analysis.…”

Re: Impacts of smartphone radiation on pregnancy: A systematic review. Heliyon 2022, p.e08915

“…It also relied on papers with low quality methods and poor exposure assessment. Another recent review by Ashrafinia et al (2021) included six higher quality cohort studies that assessed the impact of mobile phone exposure and adverse maternal, infant and child outcomes and reported no substantiated evidence of an impact from mobile phone exposure [ 4 ]. It appears that El-Jarrah & Rababa have “cherry picked” articles that suited their narrative and ignored or rejected papers that didn’t, as studies that did not find an association included in the Ashrafinia et al review were not included in this review despite being within the dubious 5-year timeframe [ 4 ].…”

“…Another recent review by Ashrafinia et al (2021) included six higher quality cohort studies that assessed the impact of mobile phone exposure and adverse maternal, infant and child outcomes and reported no substantiated evidence of an impact from mobile phone exposure [ 4 ]. It appears that El-Jarrah & Rababa have “cherry picked” articles that suited their narrative and ignored or rejected papers that didn’t, as studies that did not find an association included in the Ashrafinia et al review were not included in this review despite being within the dubious 5-year timeframe [ 4 ]. The particular papers that have been inexplicably excluded from the El-Jarrah & Rababa review but are present in the Ashrafinia et al review include Sudan et al (2016), Papadopoulou et al (2017), and Choi et al (2017) [ 5 , 6 , 7 ].…”